Packaging is the cheapest thing in the building and it takes up the most room. Preforms, films, closures, trays and cartons carry very little value per cubic metre, which turns the whole exercise into a question of how well you use the air. Get it wrong and the storage cost overtakes the product it protects.
A pallet of preforms or trays weighs almost nothing and fills a location the same as a pallet of tinned food. That is what makes block stacking, double stacking and honest cube planning worth more here than in almost any other category.
Packaging that will touch food falls under EU regulation 1935/2004, so it has to be stored somewhere clean, dry, and able to show what happened to it. An audit at the filler will ask about the warehouse, not just about the converter.
Packaging is called off against a filling schedule, so the flow is regular until a promotion or a seasonal run moves it. The warehouse has to hold a buffer big enough to absorb that without holding a year of stock.
Our Belgian warehousing is certified to the BRCGS Storage and Distribution standard at AA grade, and to ISO 9001. Packaging stored there carries the same audit trail as the product it will eventually hold.



